Netflix will huddle under 'The Umbrella Academy' for a third season as superhero series scores renewal

The Umbrella Academy will return for a third season of quirky superhero hijinks on Netflix, the streamer confirmed today.

Based on the Dark Horse comic book series of the same name, Umbrella Academy centers around a family of dysfunctional superheroes who must put aside their various differences to save the planet from destruction. Season 2, which premiered over the summer, saw the Hargreeves siblings flung back in time to the 1960s. Scattered throughout the decade, the titular superhero group realizes that their presence in the past is seriously messing up the time-stream and may end in all-out nuclear war between the U.S. and Soviet Union. Per Nielsen data acquired by Variety, Season 2 was "the most-watched show on all of streaming in its first week."

Ellen Page ("Vanya Hargreeves"), Tom Hopper ("Luther Hargreeves"), David Castañeda ("Diego Hargreeves"), Emmy Raver-Lampman ("Allison Hagreeves"), Robert Sheehan ("Klaus Hargreeves"), Aidan Gallagher ("Five"), Justin H. Min ("Ben Hargreeves"), Ritu Arya ("Lila Pitts"), and Colm Feore ("Sir Reginald Hargreeves") are all returning for Season 3, while Steve Blackman (Fargo, Altered Carbon) reprises his role as showrunner/executive producer. Production is expected to begin in February 2021 in Ontario, Canada. Like the first two seasons, the next installment will be comprised of 10 hour-long episodes.

Speaking with SYFY WIRE over the summer, Blackman promised that there's more to come for Arya's character. "She has unfinished business with the family. So we can safely say, that’s not the end of Lila Pitts," he said.

In addition, Min teased the future of Ben (aka The Horror), who, until Season 2, was thought to be dead.  “He’s alive and not a ghost,” the actor said. "Hopefully, if we get a Season 3, you’ll get to see he has quite a different personality and appearance.”

Comic co-creators Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá are still churning out new storylines, with a fourth volume — "Sparrow Academy" — on the way. In the meantime, however, Way is rolling out a spinoff series about Klaus (aka The Séance) with co-writer Shaun Simon and artist I.N.J. Culbard. 

Way and Bá are executive producing Season 3 alongside Jeff F. King, Mike Richardson, Keith Goldberg, and Jesse McKeown. King will also direct.

"Like always, [showrunner] Steve Blackman worked with the writers to really keep all the weird ideas in there," Way told SYFY WIRE in July. "It’s interesting with the whole story being told also as a TV show, because you see things that haven’t appeared in the comic yet."